Espanyol coach Mauricio Pochettino has condemned racist abuse aimed at Barcelona's Dani Alves.
Espanyol coach hits out after chants aimed at Barcelona defender
Espanyol coach Mauricio Pochettino has condemned the racist abuse aimed at Barcelona defender Dani Alves during the Catalan derby and said it needs to be "eradicated" from football.
Sections of fans targeted the Brazil international with monkey noises during the 1-1 Primera Division draw at Espanyol's Cornella-El Prat stadium.
Pochettino said after the game in
El Mundo Deportivo: "We condemn it, we want to get away from these situations. We want to eradicate these things and I'm right behind that."
Alves insisted he had not heard the racist chants during the game, saying: "I didn't hear anything because I'm only thinking about the field of play."
The result leaves Barca five points off leaders Real Madrid and midfielder Sergio Busquets felt it was two points dropped rather than one gained.
Busquets said: "There's a long way to go in the season. It's obvious that it's better to be ahead than behind, but let's see if we can cut the difference. We have to continue working hard.
"More than taking a point, we've let two slip. At the end of the first half we were made to suffer because they had some very clear chances. In the second half we were better than Espanyol, but in the end they've got a draw. We had chances to win it but it wasn't to be.
"Although we deserved more, we were up against a difficult opponent and there's nothing we can do about it now."
Barca defender Gerard Pique added on his
club's website: "We have to move forward, the season is very long and we cannot think about if we'd won or lost.
"They (Madrid) will drop points and so will we, we have to try and lose as few as possible and end up on top."
